A Year In Review

A Year In Review - Page Text Content

FC: The Great Depression

1: In the 20s the prices of stocks were skyrocketing .People had more money, and life seemed good. It was all an illusion. As prices soared, so did business cost .This inevitably lead to a point where business were having a hard time staying both competitive and profitable. All this started on Black Tuesday October 29th, 1929 .

2: The Great Depression lasted roughly from 1931-1937

3: Characteristic of life during the great depression was the widening gap between the haves and have-nots. Unemployment rose from a shocking 5 million in 1930 to an almost unbelievable 13 million by the end.

4: The children in the Great Depression were affected, because they had to leave school to work in coal mines. The percentage of malnourished children reached as high as 90%. They were going hungry and did not have enough money to have proper clothing.

5: In the late 1930, the Great Depression was weakening , but many Americans were still poverty stricken. Americans watched as German forces became more powerful and took over neighboring countries. With the invasion of Poland, World War II erupted in Europe. The suffering American economy was given a boost when the fighting countries needed supplies and looked to America to make them.

6: After, Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7 1941, America entered the war. The desperate need for soldiers, pilots, and air/sea craft all contributed to the end of the Great Depression.

7: The men in the Great Depression were affected, because they were unemployed. Also, they did not have enough money to pay bills and put food on the table. Their families were going hungry.

8: During the Great Depression, women made up 25% of the work force, but their jobs were more unstable, temporary or seasonal then men, and the unemployment rate was much greater. There was also a decided cultural view that women didn't work and in fact many who were employed full time often called themselves "homemakers".

9: The depression hit African Americans hard. While many Americans were already living in poverty, white employers felt no reservation about firing their black workers first and by 1932 more than half of African Americans were out of jobs. Racial tensions grew as economic tensions mounted; lynching's in the south saw a huge resurgence.

10: Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) a republican, was president when the Great Depression began. He infamously declared in march 1930 that the U.S. had passed the worst and argued that the economy would sort itself out. the worst however, had just began and would last until the outbreak of WWII (1939).

11: The Wall Street crash was one of the main causes of the Great Depression. Black Thursday, Black Monday, and Black Tuesday are all correct terms to describe the crash because the initial crash occurred over several days, with Tuesday being the most devastating.

12: After the initial crash, there was a wave of suicides in New York's financial district. It is said that the clerks of one hotel even started asking new guests if they needed a room for sleeping or jumping.

13: Causes of the Great Depression are widely debated but typically include a weak banking system, overproduction, bursting credit bubble, the fact that farmers and industrial workers had not shared in the prosperity of the 1920s, and a government-held laissez faire policy.

14: People who lost their homes often lived in what were called hoovervilles, or shanty towns, that were named after president Herbert Hoover. There was also Hoover stew, Hoover blankets, Hoover hogs, and Hoover wagons.

15: Chicago gangster Al Capone (1899-1947) in one of his sporadic attempts at public relations, opened a soup kitchen during the Great Depression. For millions, soup kitchen provided the only food they would see all day.

16: One American sheep farmer found that he would not make money off his sheep during the depression. Rather than watch his 3,000 sheep starve to death, he cut their throats and threw them in a canyon.

17: Scholars estimated that nearly 50% of children during the great depression did not have adequate food, shelter, or medical care. Many suffered rickets with is a childhood disease that softens your bones.

18: Between 1930 and 1935, nearly 750,000 farmers lost their farmers through bankruptcy or sheriff sales.

19: While the Great Depression affected most of the country, up to 40% of the country never faced real hardship during these years.

20: An early form of Social Security began Aug. 14, 1935 to implement social insurance for the elderly who did not have enough money to support themselves.

21: During the Great Depression, many people tried apple selling to avoid the shame of panhandling.